The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2000 · 150 citations · 23 references
Language StudiesLinguisticsPsychologyPsychoacousticsPsycholinguisticsVisual AttentionAuditory AttentionProsody ProcessingSelective AttentionSpatial AttentionSpatial HearingSpeech PerceptionAttentionAuditory Selective AttentionInteraural CuesInteraural Time CuesInteraural Time Difference PerceptionProsodic EffectsSelective Auditory AttentionSpatial Difference
The study compares how natural prosodic and vocal‑tract size cues can overcome spatial cues in selective attention. Listeners heard two simultaneous sentences and identified the target word from the attended sentence, while Experiment 1 varied natural pitch and intensity differences to isolate prosodic effects. Pitch and other prosodic cues influence target word identification but cannot override a ±91 μs spatial cue; a large (±15 %) vocal‑tract size difference can override a ±181 μs spatial cue, whereas smaller differences (≤4 %) have no effect, demonstrating that prosodic and vocal‑tract size cues can override spatial cues in selective attention.
The three experiments reported here compare the effectiveness of natural prosodic and vocal-tract size cues at overcoming spatial cues in selective attention. Listeners heard two simultaneous sentences and decided which of two simultaneous target words came from the attended sentence. Experiment 1 used sentences that had natural differences in pitch and in level caused by a change in the location of the main sentence stress. The sentences’ pitch contours were moved apart or together in order to separate out effects due to pitch and those due to other prosodic factors such as intensity. Both pitch and the other prosodic factors had an influence on which target word was reported, but the effects were not strong enough to override the spatial difference produced by an interaural time difference of ±91 μs. In experiment 2, a large (±15%) difference in apparent vocal-tract size between the speakers of the two sentences had an additional and strong effect, which, in conjunction with the original prosodic differences overrode an interaural time difference of ±181 μs. Experiment 3 showed that vocal-tract size differences of ±4% or less had no detectable effect. Overall, the results show that prosodic and vocal-tract size cues can override spatial cues in determining which target word belongs in an attended sentence.
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